HiT Allora (XML)

Allora, the XML platform for data exchange, leverages the power of XML to give you XML from any database and write XML into any database. XML is a fundamental standard for the next generation of IS solutions. In a single high value product, Allora offers a choice of standards-based approaches to working with relational data without making a major investment. This sheet gives an overview of Allora for the Java and Windows environments.

What is Allora?
Allora is a data exchange platform with data binding, DOM and SAX implementations specifically developed for relational database access. Allora includes a mapping engine that resolves schema element references to underlying RDB tables and columns, thereby allowing developers to work exclusively with XML. Allora allows binding of relational data or XML documents to Java classes so that you can use Java classes and methods to retrieve and update data in relational databases. Allora's data binding facility provides methods to marshal relational data to an XML document or to unmarshal the contents of an XML document to a relational database. The DOM is defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as a set of interfaces to access and manipulate XML data. Allora presents a relational database as a DOM structure and thereby allows developers to see the database as XML. Allora supports DOM level 2 standards. It also supports SAX 2.0, a standard lightweight parser for query results sets and metadata.

How can Allora help IS teams?
Allora extends XML standards to relational data sources, thereby allowing systems to exchange data. XML-based web development progresses faster when developers don't have to shift data access models, which is common with relational databases.

How will Allora mapping benefit development projects?
When working with relational databases, typically XML developers will have to 'shift gears' to access data via JDBC and SQL. Whether accessing data or updating relational tables, XML developers have had to make a significant shift in data models to move data to databases. This usually involves building reference structures that map XML document elements to relational tables and columns. Allora mapping saves developers from having to make any such shift at all. Developers use the Allora mapping tool to define mapping documents that can be used with XML schemas. Thereafter, developers can access data by schema reference specifying selection criteria and even updating the underlying relational tables.

Why is data binding useful?
Data binding allows developers to create objects that represent database records. These records can then be manipulated within a familiar object model. Using data binding, there is no need for SQL statements and operations. Data binding also provides methods to iterate through records sequentially rather than traversing tree structures.

How is Allora DOM different from a generic DOM?
Compared to generic DOM implementations, Allora significantly improves database access performance and offers more functionality when dealing with RDB data, including write-back support. Also, Allora allows developers to create a DOM instance by passing a single SELECT statement. Developers can then traverse the DOM tree structure to search quickly and output relevant data. Allora can also asynchronously communicate these XML datasets to message queues for further processing.

How does Allora work in the Windows and Java environments?
Allora is available in both Java and Windows versions. In the Java environment, Allora provides Java IDE wizards for data binding methods to marshal RDB table data to an XML file and unmarshal an XML document to RDB tables. JAXP supports DOM and SAX interfaces. Allora supports industry standard JDBC middleware for relational database access.

In the Windows environment, Allora for Windows is accessible as COM-based objects from Visual Basic or any COM-based IDE. Allora uses OLE DB providers and ODBC drivers for relational database access and therefore can support all major database platforms. Windows IDE wizards similarly provide data binding code for marshalling and unmarshalling of RDB table data. Allora also has export methods that allow the transfer of DOM tree data to a generic Microsoft DOM for further transformations and style sheet processing.

Which application environments is Allora compatible with?
Allora works with Windows 32-bit operating systems and Java 1.2 and later environments. It complements existing SDKs and JDKs and can be used with major application server platforms as well.

How does Allora improve performance?
Allora accesses databases very efficiently and can visibly enhance the performance of web applications. When writing back XML data, Allora speeds database updates.

How has Allora been tested? Does it scale well?
Allora has been tested with the most popular relational databases including DB2, Oracle, and SQL Server. Our rigorous testing includes web applications that process extremely heavy loads and exercise all the data binding interfaces, the DOM APIs, the SAX API, the input middleware interfaces, and the export methods. Allora takes advantage of platform multi-threading to parallel process RDB access and enhances application performance as loads increase.

Are there sample applications and source code that show the use of Allora?
Allora for Windows includes an ASP tutorial with a working XML application and source code. Allora for Java includes a series of sample applications that demonstrate the different approaches to working with XML and relational data.

How is Allora different from competitive solutions?
Allora is the only cost-effective, standards-based solution for full XML access to all major databases. It also supports the latest industry open standards for DOM/XML, OLE DB, ODBC, JDBC, JMS and MSMQ. These features ensure consistency across databases and scheduled time-to-rollout for your application development.

How does HiT Software work with other software vendors?
HiT Software works with a number of other software development companies to ensure compatibility between our products. These include BEA Systems, Borland, Bluestone, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Silverstream, Sun Microsystems and others.

What is the focus and direction of HiT Software?
HiT Software is focused on XML as the infrastructure for data exchange. XML standards continue to rapidly evolve to better meet requirements. The need to access data from ever-increasing sources will continue to grow. HiT Software is committed to delivering the very best data exchange platform in this next generation of web infrastructure.